Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Bilingual Dialogue Question

Okay, you know how some authors use <> to indicate that a word is being spoken in another language?

(IE "Hola" = "<Hello>")

Well, in a fic where the translation effect is used *a lot*, and even jumps around a couple times, would this get too busy?

What would be an alternative?

Perhaps, and this might work better if there were only a few words in another language,including them in your author notes before your story starts would be an answer? an idea anyway.

Mona

If you are actually using that other language, then I wouldn't use the < >.

But if you aren't then I'd use them so we'd know who was speaking what language. I did that in one of my stories. No one complained - except when I missed doing it a couple of times.

Classicalla - which story?

I'm the one who brought this up .

I've read the fic in question [tis good btw ] and it drives me crazy.

The person in question is a non-native English speaker who is speaking in English but we're in her head so she's translating into her native language if that makes any sense at all.

Example (ignore the hokie-ness):

"<Hi. How are you?>" Tom asked, in English.

French speaking Dan translated his friend's comment into French in his head. "<I'm good. How are you?>" he answered, translating from the French in his head to English when he spoke.

"<I'm fine. Nice weather, isn't it?>"

"<Yes. Did you see Michael Phelps win?>"

"<I missed two of his races but saw the others.>"

"<He's amazing, isn't he?>"

And then we switch to Dan's POV:

"Yes, he is," he said in English.

"Did you see the water polo match?" his friend said in accented English.

"No. Was it good?"

"The Americans are going to the gold medal match."


and so on for a couple pages but not every time we see this person - only when we're in this person's POV if that makes sense. I've been confusing myself about it all night...

Personally, I found it very distracting and so Queenie's here asking .

Other thoughts?
Carol

If the dialogue is all in English, as in your example, Carol, I'm not sure I see the point of the < >. If it were me writing it, I'd probably just keep the dialogue English and use the narrative around the dialogue - as in your example - to indicate that a translation is taking place.

LabRat

My extremely neglected ‘A New Hero’. (I really do plan on finishing it.) But I used tildes (~) rather than < > because I used those for telepathy. Like this: Dan said, “~My native language is French.~”

And which story are you speaking of, Carol?


Oooh... The example you came up with - Dan translating the English into French and then the French into English - is confusing. Since the story is written in English, I wouldn’t use the < > when English is being spoken.

And you noted that French speaking Dan had to translate this in his head. Speaking as someone who has had to do this (Spanish, not French), I think the readers would assume this is what is happening if you did something like this (Also please ignore the hokie-ness.):

Since Dan’s native language was French (or this could have already been established elsewhere in the story), he hesitated in thought before answering in English. “I’m fine. How are you?”

Initially, I was totally lost by the next four lines. But then I think I got it. Tom was speaking English and Dan was answering in English. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t use the < >. If you wanted to make it more clear that Dan was having to think about what the English was before he spoke, you (don’t even know if it’s your story) could do something like having Dan mix up a word or the order in which it is said. But if you aren’t familiar with the other language and how things are pronounced or what would be likely words to mess up or the order of the words, it could prove difficult. In my story, the other language was Kryptonian so I could do pretty much anything I wanted to. Maybe something like this: “He’s... hmm... amazing, isn’t he?”

But the next four lines made more sense since Tom says:

and Dan says this:

These last two lines are more clear as to who is speaking.

And unless this is being put in script format why change the point of view as done above?

But in my story, I only used the tildes (~) when both parties were speaking Kryptonian or when a person speaking Kryptonian was asking someone who spoke both Kryptonian and English how to say something in English.

And in one instance where I originally had one person who only spoke Kryptonian, one who spoke only English, and one who spoke both. It got confusing trying to have the one who spoke both (Clark) trying to translate that I gave up on it and made the person who had only spoke Kryptonian be able to speak English.

I hope I wasn’t even more confusing...

~~

Yes, this sounds easier.

Yeah I know the example left a lot to be desired.

This is a story that Queenie is working on that is a great story and I BR'd part of it yesterday and pointed out that I found the <> annoying . Of course, she also may or may not go for my love story pairing in it.

As for the POV switching... the example was bad. But you know, sometimes in a scene you'll be in Clark's head and what he's thinking about what's happening and then he'll ask a question and then you switch to Lois' head for more of the convo. When talking about water polo it doesn't really make as much sense to switch .

One of my thoughts was the text around the dialog such as: Dan had to search for the right words. "Water polo? What's that?" or something. And maybe something in the A/N about how one should remember that English isn't this person's native language. With the use of... between words to indicate thinking of the right word/pauses while searching for it etc.

Carol

Just a thought.. why don't you use false grammar? Too me, it wouldn't make much sense, if the not- native speaker speaks perfect English, but has to translate into his own language all the time. I'm not a native speaker and usually I don't start thinking or writing everything in German only to translate it afterwards.

I guess it might take your non-native speaker a while to understand longer sentences, particularly those including words that he doesn't know. He would perhaps ask for help when trying to say something without knowing the right expressions. He would perhaps define a word, rather than use it because he has forgotten the vocabulary.

You could also switch the order of words. If your character is French, he might have a problem with adjectives and tries to place them after the subject, rather than in front of it.

*nods* In the past I've also dropped contractions, since slang is the hardest thing to master. Usually I find like Labrat said, using the text around the dialogue as markers helps tons in readability. Also bakasi's suggestions are excellent in that a familiarity with possible language flubs adds more realism.

I try to avoid actually using foreign languages unless I need the feel of a certain word, etc (I used a Czech word constantly in my last fic to anchor the story to the place where it was happening). But then again, I also write in a very limited pov, which might be different.

alcyone

I realize that the dialogue quoted by Carol is for example only, but I am compelled to point out something. If the writer is changing scenes and using a definite break between the scenes (like a series of "*" or "~"), then there isn't any problem with the POV switch. But if it's in the same scene, don't switch. It confuses the readers and blurs the lines between the characters if the writer hops into their heads indiscriminately.

As far as the original question about setting off the dialogue because one speaker has to work at translating from English to French, formulate a response in French, then translate it to English before speaking, there's no reason to set off the speech with any kind of tags. In fact, as others have mentioned, it might be confusing.

I'd suggest, as others have, that the native French speaker not use contractions to differentiate the speech. Dashes to show momentary hesitation might be good, too, as long as they aren't over-used. You might also use French word order instead of English.

Since I don't speak French, I will illustrate with Spanish.

(If Dan is that unfamiliar with English, Tom ought to speak Spanish. But he won't because he's a monolingual American!)

In Spanish, as in many other languages, the adjective follows the noun it modifies. (I think that's actually more logical than the English way, but if we can't agree on the use of the semicolon or the apostrophe, noun-adjective order isn't going to change any time soon.)

Hope I've helped and not hindered. (I just wish I had that upside-down question mark.)

My perspective on this is not to bother - I really don't use foreign dialogue much, and when I do I simply say something like 'Clark shifted to French effortlessly' and carry on with the assumption that he's speaking French for the rest of the conversation.

One reason not to use < and > is that a browser viewing your story as an HTML document will see nothing between the brackets, unless they happen to begin with a words that is a valid HTML command - for example, if it said <I am sorry> the I would be parsed as switching on italics and the rest ignored. Most browsers are OK about switching HTML off when they look at text files, but sometimes thing go wrong. All of the < and > brackets on this page are actually being stored as four-character codes to avoid this - the BBS software this board uses does it automatically, and the text files on the archive ought to be OK if nothing goes wrong with the browser, but if you posted elsewhere you would get some nasty surprises.

I'd echo everyone who's said that the fewer characters and symbols used in the fic, the better. It confuses readers and pulls people out of the story. As a couple of people have said, one aside to inform the readers that the characters are speaking another language, or one to point out that one character speaks slowly or awkwardly because he's speaking a second language, is sufficient.

About the translating from English to French and back to English again in the character's head, that really depends on how competent the character is in his/her second language. I work with many clients who speak English as a second (or third) language, and the more competent they become (even if not fluent) the less likely they are to revert to their own language inside their head - for all sorts of reasons, including that it takes time, it distracts them from the language they need to speak and because the grammar, idioms and so on are different. The more you can learn to think in the second language, the better your spoken use of that language will be.

And, as Terry and others have said, the best way to remind readers that the character isn't fluent in English is to write their use of the language as imperfect. So, for example, I frequently hear this kind of usage from my clients: "Today I go to the library, and after I can go to use the computer. When I see you again?"

So, not perfect English, but clear enough to understand.

And if your characters are speaking a completely different language, one observation at the start that 'Clark switched to German to say...' and then at the end of the conversation 'Karl said in English...' is all you need.


Wendy

I second Wendy.
English is not my native language but when I have to use it I also think in english. It's almost automatic (emphasis on almost).
But with other languages in which I'm less fluent (not that I'm all that fluent in English -specially spoken), like spanish and french, I have to force myself to think about which language I need to use - sometimes I need to speak spanish and can only think in french - and that is very confusing and frustrating...

About the fanfic, I agree that it should be kept as simple as possible in terms of " or <>. Just mention wich language they're using.
I've recently read a fanfic (can't recall the title right now - but it was great, don't get me wrong) in which Lois and Clark were in a fictional foreign country and Dan Scardino worked for Bureau 39. At first it was given the impression that Lois didn't understand the native language but suddenly she knows everything that is being said. It seemed contradictory and confusing.
Still, it's just a detail and it didn't hurt the narrative.